Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series)

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘Why not?’ added Elizabeth. ‘You’ll be able to talk babies endlessly together.’

  Adelaide smiled at her stepdaughter and wondered whether Elizabeth herself would soon be anxious to talk of babies. She was shortly to marry the Earl of Errol and William was delighted with the match. So was Elizabeth herself.

  ‘Perhaps when my child is born, I will invite her,’ mused Adelaide.

  ‘It will be pleasant to have guests,’ said Augusta. ‘We never did when Mamma was here. People didn’t come much, did they Mary?’

  Mary agreed that they did not. ‘It was because Mamma was an actress and her friends could not mix with royalty – which Papa is of course; and Papa’s friends did not want to mix with stage folk. Not all of them, of course, but some. Uncle George was always kind to Mamma. He was fond of her because she was so gay and attractive. He liked actresses.’

  ‘His Majesty would be kind to all women.’

  ‘They say he’s not very kind to Lady Hertford at the moment,’ said Mary with a giggle. ‘Nor was he to Maria Fitzherbert, nor to Perdita Robinson and a whole crowd of them.’

  There was no reticence in the FitzClarence family. William had never stood on ceremony and it was unlikely that their mother would.

  Adelaide did not wish the subject to turn to the disastrous matter of the King and Queen so she hastily changed the subject to Ida and discussed plans for inviting her to Bushy.

  But the most important topic in the household was of course Elizabeth’s marriage. Adelaide studied her stepdaughter. She was not exactly beautiful but dazzlingly attractive. So must her mother have been. They had with their usual frankness told her that Elizabeth was more like Dorothy Jordan than any of them.

  Elizabeth described her wedding dress which had been presented by Aunts Sophia and Augusta, her father’s two unmarried sisters, the royal Princesses.

  ‘Such a dress!’ cried Elizabeth. ‘A royal dress. Well, we are royal through Papa and no one can deny that. But it was good of the old aunts to present me with the dress. It was a very ceremonious occasion, I can tell you. They sent for me to go to St James’s, and there I must wait until their Highnesses were ready to receive me.’ Elizabeth began to mime the reception of herself by the royal Princesses and then gave a little sketch of their imparting the news that they were presenting her with a wedding dress.

  ‘A young lady’s wedding day is the most important day in her life,’ mimicked Elizabeth.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ retorted her sister Sophia. ‘It’s what comes after that is important. Don’t you agree, Adelaide?’

  ‘I am sure you are right.’

  How gay they were! How unconscious of the fact that their father had never married their mother. What did they care that she was an actress? They were as proud of her as they were of their royal connections.

  I am happy, thought Adelaide. This is the happiest time I have known. And when the child comes, that will be the very height of contentment. I ask nothing more than to have my child … and to live here in this pleasant spot comfortably, at peace, for the rest of my life.

  The sound of carriage wheels intruded on the scene.

  Augustus jumped up and ran to see who had come. They heard him shouting: ‘It’s George!’

  And there was George FitzClarence coming across the lawn surrounded by his sisters who had rushed to meet him, and young Augustus was leaping in front of him like a jester.

  George greeted Adelaide affectionately. They shared a special friendship. Hadn’t she spent her honeymoon nursing him!

  Like all the FitzClarences he did not stand on ceremony. He sat beside her, asked after her health not in the most delicate manner. He was very knowledgeable about the birth of babies for his first child – a daughter – had just been born.

  He had come to talk of the christening. They had chosen the baby’s name.

  ‘What is it?’ cried Amelia.

  George turned to his stepmother. ‘Adelaide,’ he said. ‘With your permission.’

  Yes, she thought. I am happy. I’ve never been so happy. They have accepted me.

  Her eyes had filled with tears. George leaned forward and kissed her.

  ‘Permission granted?’ he asked.

  And everyone cheered.

  She looked across to the flower gardens which they had told her their mother had planned during her brief sojourns between theatrical engagements. She could almost fancy the ghost of Dorothy Jordan looked on, benignly content with the one who had taken her place.

  Elizabeth FitzClarence was a handsome bride.

  ‘The image of her mother,’ it was whispered. ‘The last time I saw her was as Lady Teazel in The School for Scandal. She was magnificent, but they say it was not one of her best parts.’

  ‘Oh no, you should have seen her when she was young. Miss Hoyden in The Relapse was one of her best. I’ll never forget her. And the new Lady Erroll is the image of what she was at her age.’

  ‘The Duchess must be near her time. Fancy her coming to the wedding!’

  ‘No doubt she did so to please the Duke. They say he insists on her receiving his bastards.’

  ‘Poor creature. She looks meek.’

  Adelaide was aware of their whisperings but they did not disturb her. She was happy. She felt well. In two months her baby should be with her; she was longing for the day, and it was pleasant to be at her stepdaughter’s wedding and to see how the bride was aware of her and now and then gave her an understanding look, as though, thought Adelaide, I am indeed her mother.

  The Duke was delighted. He made one of his long, rambling speeches which set everyone trying to stifle their yawns; and the Princess Sophia had graced the wedding with her presence.

  It was the Princesses’ way of letting the world know that they accepted the FitzClarences as their relations. No one was surprised to see her there. There were whispers about Sophia and always had been. The fact that she had remained unmarried did not mean that she had retained her virginity. The scandals of the family were not made entirely by the boys. No one could be absolutely sure that some twenty years before the Princess Sophia had secretly given birth to a child, but many believed this to be so. So there was no reason why she should not accept the results of her brothers’ indiscretions. However, her presence at the wedding delighted her brother William.

  People were beginning to look with new interest at William. He had improved since his marriage. He no longer used the crude oaths he once had; his manners were changing; and instead of making himself ridiculous by offering his hand to impertinent young commoners who refused it, he had a dignified royal wife, who was very properly pregnant and who had undoubtedly brought some dignity into his somewhat disorderly life. But the main point of interest was his nearness to the throne. There were constant rumours of the Regent’s illnesses and the Duke of York did not enjoy good health. If they died, and they were becoming elderly, then this bluff sailor with the pineapple-shaped head and the habit of making endless and entirely boring speeches, would become the King of England, and the insignificant Adelaide the Queen.

  There would be a king with ten illegitimate children all of whom were acknowledged by his family – and there would soon be another, legitimate this time and heir to the throne! For there was no doubt that the child the Duchess so proudly and delightedly carried would be the new King or Queen of England.

  The Princess Sophia bade Adelaide sit beside her.

  ‘For you look a little tired, my dear,’ she said.

  ‘I have been so careful lately,’ replied Adelaide, ‘that I am unused to functions.’

  ‘You mustn’t overtire yourself, my dear,’ said Sophia. ‘Remember those other two occasions. Women get accustomed to having miscarriages.’

  Sophia looked doleful with prophecy but Adelaide refused to be dismayed.

  Her child would soon arrive. Only two more months and it would be here.

  Sophia was saying: ‘I wonder if it will be a little girl or a little boy?’


  Adelaide smiled. What did she care? It would be a child – her own child. That was all that mattered.

  ‘I believe the Duchess of Kent is taking it badly,’ said Sophia not without a trace of pleasure. ‘I for one am delighted. She was beginning to give herself airs and one heard of nothing but the perfections of her little Drina.’

  ‘I hope she will not be too put out,’ said Adelaide.

  ‘My dear Adelaide,’ laughed Sophia, ‘nothing in the world could put her out more. She has already taken on the role of Mother to the Queen, and the child not two years old yet!’

  ‘It is a pity that what brings so much joy to one should bring pain to others.’

  Sophia looked at her shrewdly. ‘Is that not the way of the world, Adelaide?’ she asked.

  Adelaide was not sure of this. She tried to dismiss the Duchess of Kent from her mind. This was such a happy occasion; she did not want it spoiled.

  A week after Elizabeth’s wedding Adelaide’s pains started.

  She was frightened because they had come six weeks too soon. Terrified, she called to her women who quickly sent for the doctors.

  The labour had undoubtedly begun and was long and arduous. Adelaide was in agony; but through it all she reminded herself that anything was worth while if the child was alive and well.

  The apartments in Stable Yard were scarcely adequate. How much better it would have been if the child could have been born at Bushy where she had arranged it should be; but how could she have known it would arrive six weeks before it was due?

  At length the ordeal was over leaving an exhausted Adelaide more dead than alive, but when she heard the cry of a child and knew it was hers her joy was overwhelming.

  ‘A little girl,’ said the Duke, at her bedside.

  ‘My own child … at last,’ she murmured.

  For some days it was believed that Adelaide could not survive, but so great was her joy in her child that by her very will to live for it she slowly began to recover, and a week after the birth she was out of danger and able to sit up and hold her child in her arms. A little girl – a perfect little girl!

  ‘I have never believed such happiness was possible,’ she told William.

  He assured her that he was as happy. This precious child was the future Queen of England unless they had a boy; but he had suffered so much from her ordeal that he did not want to think of her going through that again.

  ‘What’s wrong with a queen?’ he asked. ‘They say the English have no objection to them and like them better than kings.’

  ‘What shall we call her, William?’

  ‘We’ll have to have the King’s consent to whatever we choose because she is … who she is. It could be Anne or Elizabeth … both great queens.’

  ‘Anne or Elizabeth,’ murmured Adelaide. ‘I should like Elizabeth.’

  The King called to see his little niece.

  ‘Perfect! Perfect!’ he beamed, as he came to sit down by the bed and study Adelaide. ‘And you, my dear?’

  ‘I grow better every day, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Nothing could please me more.’

  He looked younger than when she last saw him, Adelaide thought. He wore an unpowdered wig with curls of a subdued nut brown which became him. He excelled on such an occasion as this – benign monarch, loving brother, unselfish in his delight for a brother who had what he had failed to achieve: a loving wife and an heir to the throne.

  He leaned over and patted her hand.

  ‘You must get well.’

  ‘I am doing so quickly. Happiness is the best healer.’

  His eyes filled with tears or perhaps they were not real tears. In any case he flicked his eyes with a scented kerchief.

  ‘Long may it last,’ he said. ‘Bless you, my dear.’

  ‘We have thought of our child’s name and want to know if we may have Your Majesty’s consent to it.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that little one can in due course be the Queen.’

  ‘For that reason we should like to call her Elizabeth.’

  He smiled. He remembered that the Kents – somewhat ostentatiously – had wanted a queenly name for their daughter. And he had refused. They had to put up with Alexandrina Victoria instead. And serve them right. That woman was too ready to push herself forward.

  ‘An excellent choice,’ he said.

  Adelaide was delighted. ‘And if you would allow us to call her after you – Georgiana …’

  ‘On one condition,’ he said, with the utmost charm, ‘that she is also called after her mother.’

  ‘Elizabeth Georgiana Adelaide.’

  ‘I can think of nothing that would please me more,’ said the King.

  The Duchess of Kent was frustrated. To think that the Duchess of Clarence – that fragile young woman – should have successfully come through her ordeal and the result should be a daughter!

  She went into the nursery where Alexandrina was playing with her bricks, so intelligently, already taking an interest in the pictures and saying ‘Mamma’.

  To think that that innocent child should be robbed of her birthright! thought the Duchess, and was ready to burst into tempestuous sobs.

  ‘My Drina, my darling child.’ She picked up the little girl whose wide blue eyes surveyed her mother wonderingly. She was accustomed to passionate embraces and already aware that she was a very precious person.

  ‘Mamma,’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘My angel! Oh, it is cruel … cruel!’

  Alexandrina’s fingers seized the locket which the Duchess wore about her throat. She tried to open it.

  ‘It is your dear Papa, my darling. Oh, if only he were here to bear this with me.’

  Alexandrina chuckled and began to pull at the locket so there was nothing to do but sit down and open it and show her the picture.

  ‘Your Papa, Drina.’

  ‘Papa,’ repeated Alexandrina. ‘Mamma … Papa …’ And she laughed at her own cleverness.

  So soft were the flaxen curls, so clear the blue eyes, so soft the pink and white skin; she was the picture of health. What was that other child like, wondered the Duchess. Sickly, she was sure. The bulletins said that the mother and child were progressing well. How well? she wondered.

  It would be a great tragedy if anyone stood in Alexandrina’s way. And while the Duchess of Clarence was able to bear children there would always be a danger.

  Fräulein Lehzen had come into the nursery and Alexandrina laughed with pleasure. Here was another adorer.

  ‘Mamma … Papa …’ called Alexandrina.

  Fräulein Lehzen’s face was pink with pleasure.

  ‘She is so forward, Your Highness,’ she said.

  The Duchess nodded, while Alexandrina, having displayed her cleverness, imperiously signed that she had had enough of lockets and admiration and wished to be returned to her bricks.

  Her mother put her back on to the carpet and said to Fräulein Lehzen: ‘That child is healthy, so they say.’

  ‘They say these things,’ said Fräulein Lehzen a trifle scornfully.

  ‘The Duchess is a kindly woman. I daresay she is beside herself with joy. I could be happy for her … but when I think of what this means to our angel …’

  Fräulein Lehzen nodded. ‘I heard that His Majesty has called on the Duchess.’

  ‘He did not call on me. He was most unkind about darling Drina’s name.’

  ‘He has asked that the child be called after him, so I heard.’

  ‘Georgiana!’

  ‘Elizabeth first, they say. Then Georgiana Adelaide.’

  ‘Elizabeth first! But that is a queen’s name.’

  ‘I suppose that is what they thought,’ said the Fräulein gloomily.

  ‘Oh, it is so cruel! I wanted Drina to be called that if she could not be Georgiana and he refused. Yet he has given his consent to this child’s having it.’

  ‘I never thought the Duchess would bear a living child. She had all the appearance of a woman whose pregnancy was not a h
ealthy one.’

  ‘Do you think …’

  The two women were gazing at the child on the floor, so beautiful, so perfect in every way. Already a little queen, they were both thinking.

  ‘Alexandrina,’ said the Duchess. ‘It is not the name of an English queen. That was why he wanted her to be called that. And this other child is Elizabeth. She will be Elizabeth the Second … if she lives.’

  ‘If she lives,’ said Fräulein Lehzen.

  ‘Queen Alexandrina! No, it won’t do. And what else is there. Victoria.’

  ‘Queen Victoria,’ said Fräulein Lehzen. ‘It has a ring of dignity.’

  ‘It sounds more like a queen’s name than Alexandrina. Lehzen, my dear, we will cease to call our darling Alexandrina. From today she shall be Victoria.’

  Fräulein Lehzen nodded. ‘Queen Victoria,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, it is not Elizabeth … it is not Georgiana … but Victoria.’

  ‘Victoria,’ said the Duchess. ‘Victoria, my darling.’

  The child, not recognizing her new name, did not look up.

  But of course she would soon realize that she was to be Victoria.

  A Visit to St James’s

  SO ADELAIDE HAD her baby. She wrote to Ida of her happiness and told her that she looked forward to seeing her and showing her the little Princess Elizabeth who was all that she had ever hoped for. Why should Ida not pay a visit to Bushy House? There she could meet Adelaide’s other family – a most amusing family, she did assure her; something interesting was always happening to them; marriages and births, balls and love affairs. ‘My stepchildren are the most natural people in the world. I am so fond of them and I believe they are of me. I want you to know them, Ida.’

  She particularly wanted to see her little niece Louise who suffered from some mysterious spinal trouble. Adelaide had a special fondness for little Loulou as she was called; and she longed to see her young brother Wilhelm. Please, Ida must come to England with her children soon; and what could be a better time to come than coronation year?

  The King was becoming not exactly popular but less unpopular. After all, he was going to provide the citizens of London with a wonderful spectacle in his coronation, which meant visitors to the capital and trade for the shops, besides the excitement such occasions inevitably meant.